Sunday, 29 July 2012

For the Federation!

The other day I ordered myself a box of reinforcements for my Star Fleet forces. They have arrived! I had a chat with a friend, and we agreed that these boxes are a little top-heavy, so to speak. That is to say that I had the first squadron box for the Federation, and now I have the Reinforcements, and both have a Battlecruiser and a Dreadnought. At this rate, by the time I have a balanced fleet in every other respect, I shall have more miniatures for the largest ships than one can canonically use! Anyway, there has been a change in the materials used for the models. I had heard that Mongoose were going to shift over to metal, indeed, I had read them so aver on their site. But they seem to have forgotten to update their product description, which still suggests the ships are made of resin with small metal parts. Nope, everything in this box is metal. I imagine those "cloaked" Romulan models will be resin still! I hurry to say that I am not annoyed by this, and before I opened the box its heft made me suspect the truth.

As well as these little fellows, I have also been poking about at pieces of plasticard, intent on knocking up a Mobile Base and a few small merchantmen for my Klingons and Federals to harry or help. After all, this is a fundamentally 2-D naval game, so there is no shortage of historical inspiration! For instance, a Klingon battleship and an attendant cruiser are attempting to break out to the North Atlant- er, to attack the Vulcan shipping lanes, and a hastily thrown-together Federation force of ever-growing strength is attempting to stop them. Or how about something in the Russian Convoy vein or the Battle of the River Plate? Battle of the Plate Nebula, perhaps! More on that later. For now here is the situation at the Utopia Planitia Yards (sub-Sector Pete).